Popular Voiceworks 1

28 Songs in Jazz, Gospel, R&B, Soul, and Show Styles

Charles Beale and Steve Milloy

Description

Popular Voiceworks is a fabulous collection of jazzy and popular songs in the highly practical Voiceworks format. Packed with songs in a huge range of styles, from unison to four parts, the collection provides exciting new material written by the authors as well as choral arrangements of favourites such as 'Comedy Tonight', 'Straighten up and fly right', and 'Dancing in the Street'. You'll find soul, jazz, funk, swing, spiritual, gospel, disco, show, folk, motown, R&B, doowop, hip-hop and more - all presented with practical advice on teaching and rehearsing. There are plenty of opportunities to improvise, as well as guidance on using the voice to sing popular styles. An accompanying CD includes stylish performances of all the songs together with backings for most. This all adds up to a fabulous resource for all young and young-at-heart singing groups!

Popular Voiceworks 1

28 Songs in Jazz, Gospel, R&B, Soul, and Show Styles

Charles Beale and Steve Milloy

Composer Information

Charles Beale and Steve Milloy

Born in London and now based in New York, Charles Beale has enjoyed a varied career as a jazz educator, pianist, composer-arranger, and choral director. Author of the acclaimed Jazz Piano from Scratch (ABRSM Publishing), he taught jazz at London's Royal College of Music, and for ten years he was lead jazz consultant to the Associated Board. His playing and arranging work includes credits on albums and singles by pop and dance artists including Whitney Houston and Adeva. He recently became Music Director of the New York City Gay Men's Chorus, having for five years been Musical Director of the London Gay Men's Chorus.

Steve Milloy (b. 1965) has spent ten years coaching and directing singers in schools, churches, theatres, and concert stages across the Midwestern US. A former member of the acclaimed a cappella octet Pieces of 8, he has sung in popular styles in theme parks and on TV and radio, and has composed or arranged pieces for more than a dozen GALA choruses in the US and UK. Steve has worked at the keyboard and/or on the podium with choruses and threatre troupes in St Louis, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati, and recently he returned to singing and acting in productions such as The Full Monty and Caroline, orChange.

Popular Voiceworks 1

28 Songs in Jazz, Gospel, R&B, Soul, and Show Styles

Charles Beale and Steve Milloy

Reviews and Awards

Winner of the 'Best Pop Publication' award at the 2008 Music Industry Association Awards

"In terms of genre it's a delightfully mixed bag, with everything from spirituals to 80s pop pastiches making an appearance. It is packed with useful teaching notes and handy warm-up ideas. For the most part, the arrangements are lovely, and Beale is at ease throwing deliciously scrunchy chords into unexpected corners of well-known tunes, while also getting a lot of fun out of pop numbers like 'Dancin' in the Street'." - Eamonn O'Dwyer, Music Teacher, October 08

"Above all for the least experienced of choir leaders, this volume could be invaluable . . . No other choral collection that I have seen is as thorough or as helpful in laying out a scheme of exercises for the start of rehearsal . . . Every song is individually prefaced with background information, suggestions for getting started (including specially devised exercises), lists of options for teaching the song and for adapting it to your group's requirements, danger points, and ideas for performance. In other words, a complete lesson or rehearsal plan is presented for every one of the songs; all this plus a CD of model performances and backing tracks . . . Oxford University Press have, I would guess, produced a 'pop' hit." - Armin Zanner, Classroom Music, Spring Term 08/9

"Popular Voiceworks is itself a hefty number, ring bound and more than 200 pages long, many of them available to be photocopied. There are also 2 CDs of performances and backing tracks tucked in the back cover. Suitable for use for choirs of age 11 upwards, and with detailed strategies for learning each song that are effectively in themselves lesson plans, this volume will be a boon for teachers and is another remarkable achievement for this series." - Matthew Greenall, The Singer August 08

"Has loads of information and additional material about the different genres used in this book to get the most classically-bred singer 'in the swing'. The recording and performing standards on the accompanying CDs are excellent." - Sue Anderson, Singing Summer 09